A Philippine court has fined and sentenced 13 Vietnamese poachers to several months in prison after they were caught two years ago trying to flee with 101 critically endangered turtles, a conservationist group said yesterday.

The World Wide Fund for Nature said the sentences, handed down in the island of Palawan, could serve as a warning to foreign poachers.

In the past decade more than a thousand foreigners – mostly Chinese and Vietnamese – have been arrested and charged with poaching but sentences have been rare, the WWF said.